n of old Bristol sketches purchased for the
Museum and Library, there is a beautiful drawing of Redcliffe Hill,
executed about eighty years ago; and the artist, doubtless acting on
the evidence of old inhabitants--contemporaries of Freeling--has
distinctly marked the house where that gentleman was born, and noted the
fact in his own handwriting.

[Illustration: + BIRTHPLACE OF SIR FRANCIS FREELING, BART.,

_Secretary to the General Post Office_.]

Permission has been obtained from the council of the Bristol Museum and
Reference Library for the picture to be photographed. The following
is the superscription on the back of the original pencil
drawing:--"Redcliffe Pit, Bristol. The house with this mark + at the
door is the house in which Sir Francis Freeling, Bart., was born. The
high building, George's patent shot tower, G. Delamotte, del. Jan. 12,
1831." A copy of the sketch is here reproduced. The house as "set back"
or re-erected is now known as 24, Redcliffe Hill.

Sir Francis Freeling first carried on his secretarial duties at the old
Post Office in Lombard Street, once a citizen's Mansion. There he was
located for 30 years.

On September 29th, 1829, the Lombard Street Office was abandoned as
Headquarters, and Freeling moved, with the secretarial staff under his
chieftainship, to St. Martin's-le-Grand.

In 1833 the question arose whether the mail coaches should be obtained
by public competition, or by private agreement, but Sir Francis
Freeling's idea was to get the public service done well, irrespective of
the means.

On this point Mr. Joyce, C.B., in his history of the Post Office, wrote
that in 1835 the contract for the supply of mail coaches was in the
hands of Mr. Vidler, of Millbank, who had held it for more than 40
years, and little had been done during this period to improve the
construction of the vehicles he supplied. Designed after the pattern in
vogue at the end of the last century, they were, as compared with the
stage coaches, not only heavy and unsightly, but inferior both in point
of speed and accommodation. Commissioners appointed to inquire into the
system, altogether dissatisfied with the manner in which the contract
had been performed, arranged with the Government not only that the
service should be put up to public tender, but that Vidler should be
excluded from the competition. This decision was arrived at in July,
1835, and the contract expired on the 5th of January following. To
invit